SYNDICATION

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The seemingly eternal president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has an iron grip on his nation and a foreign policy to match. A large majority of Russians give him their support. He will win re-election.

Is it his early economic success? Or is it because of a new stability? Or the nation’s growing self-respect after the ignominious years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union? Or is it a sense of besieged defensiveness because of the advantage the West took of Russia afterwards.

This report was carried by the South Korean news agency on March 6 (local time: 23.38) and is being reproduced to give a glimpse into how the current development on the Korean peninsula is viewed in the Republic of Korea. – The Editor

SEOUL (IDN-INPS) – South Korean political parties on March 6 demonstrated mixed reactions to the results of the high-stakes visit to North Korea by President Moon Jae-in's special envoys, which included an agreement to hold a cross-border summit next month.

Shortly after returning from his two-day visit to Pyongyang, Chung Eui-yong, Moon's chief security advisor and head of the South's 10-member delegation, announced a set of agreements with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – What do we in the West know about Islam? Perhaps more than we did before 9/11 but not much.

When Tony Blair was prime minister of the United Kingdom he was photographed walking along holding the Koran. President George W. Bush said repeatedly that Islam was a religion of peace.

Even though at that time one of the most influential American political writers, Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University, had written that it wasn’t fundamentalism that was the problem, it was Islam itself.

LIEGE (IDN | SWAN) – While scholars discussed “Violence in the Postcolonial and Neocolonial World” at a conference in this eastern Belgian city, news of various acts of violence filled the airwaves, underlining the extent to which people have to deal with the issue on a constant basis.

The Liège meeting, February 15-16, focused on both systemic violence (resulting from colonialism and oppression) and individual acts, with discussions highlighting the consequences for society, including ethnic divisions and paranoia.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) – In December 2016, President Donald Trump tweeted that the United States “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability” and later told MSNBC that he would “outmatch” and “outlast” other potential competitors in a nuclear arms race. The comments mostly prompted condemnation in the United States and around the world and raised concerns about the direction the president would take U.S. nuclear weapons policy.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – It’s been an odd couple of months for southern Africa. No one predicted last year that in almost the same breath the long-serving dictator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, and the super-corrupt president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, would be soon overthrown – and non-violently to boot.

In Zimbabwe the army did trigger Mugabe's demise, but it was a sort of passive coup, a non-violent withdrawal of support. In South Africa Zuma was compelled to stand down as leader of the African National Congress because of a majority vote against him in an assembly of the ANC, the party of black protest against former minority white-led rule. Again, all done non-violently.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – How rude can you get? The US vice-president, Mike Pence, sitting one row in front of the sister of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un refused to turn round and say hi. She was one outstretched arm away from him. For the whole of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics he sat with his back to her.

It didn’t have to be a handshake – unless the lady initiated it – but a pleasant expression and a friendly hello would not only be what mother told all us men to do when meeting a lady, it would a way of saying, "We Americans hope that we can substitute ploughshares for the sword".

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – We are soon going to have a clash between President Donald Trump and international law. This is predicable when one examines the presidential discourse over what to do about North Korea and its possession of nuclear-tipped rockets.

He has threatened "fire and fury" which doesn’t sound like the opening words of the UN’s Charter: "We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…..and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained……and for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours."

Hewa Matara Gamage Siripala Palihakkara is former Governor of the Northern Province, one of the nine provinces, of Sri Lanka and former Foreign Secretary. Following are extracts from a foreword to the collection of essays by academics on Sri Lanka-China Relations ‘The Island of the Lion and the Land of the Dragon’, a joint publication of the Pathfinder Foundation in Sri Lanka and the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, and edited by H.M.G.S. Palihakkara. The book was launched on January 16, 2018 in Colombo. – The Editor's Note

COLOMBO (IDN) – The Cold War and its aftermath were marked by interesting contrasts as well as parallels. Only history will tell us if the risk of bipolar nuclear conflict of the Cold War was more or less dangerous than the reality of the widespread non-nuclear armed conflict and nuclear proliferation of the post-Cold war period.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – President Donald Trump said it would never happen. Now it is. During the election he said he did not want more interventions – no more Iraqs, no more Afghanistans, Libyas or Syrias.

A year into his presidency the American military is involved in all these places and he’s aching to get boots on the ground in North Korea and perhaps even Iran. At least he’s not thinking about it in Ukraine – that would really set the cat among the pigeons.

Last week his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said that waging war in Syria is “crucial to our national defence”. This is a big deal but few seem to be talking about it. The pundits and congressmen are either asleep at the switch or taking a holiday.